Sweet Meats

                                         

      “ I like vegan meals,  I’ve tried many of them and they are good.  They would all be better with some moose meat thrown in.”

                                     - Steve Harrison jr.                                                                                                                            

   

 “Ooh that’s good!”  Pete passed the sampler plate to dad and returned to his position at the mixer.  I had already tasted it, and he was right.  The 25 pounds of chorizo sausage we had just made was just spicy enough.  The key, I think, was the jar of sliced jalapenos that Tamra ran through the grinder along with the meat.  The vinegary brine of the jalepenos was added to the spice mix too.   

    Each batch of sausage was tested in the same way;  After thorough mixing, I would grab a handful out of the mixer and disappear into the kitchen.  Five minutes later I would come out with hot samples for everyone to taste.  Eight different 25 lb. batches of sausage followed suit including two varieties each of Italian, breakfast, Cajun and Chorizo sausages.    

    With all this sampling I was worried that we would be too full to sample the brisket. Early in the day we had sawed through the bottom of the ribcage, freeing up the brisket. I popped it into the slow cooker with a nice barbeque- mesquite brine.  I poured in some worcestershire sauce and a Fat Tire amber ale along with some fresh garlic and topped it off with water.  Setting the crockpot on eight hours, I left it alone and got back to work.

    “Hi guys.” mom was at the door with two tins of fresh blueberry muffins.  “Who wants a muffin?” She had picked the blueberries last week when they were caribou hunting off the Denali highway.

    “I’ll have one, thanks mom.”  She scraped the sides with her knife to free it from it’s pod.  As she handed it to me I noticed that there were more blueberries to it than muffin.  Perfect.  There  must have been a half a cup of blueberries in each one.  With a walnut pressed into the top along with a sprinkle of sugar I quickly dubbed it the best blueberry muffin ever.

        Back to the meat.  Dad was cranking the sausage stuffer.  I was feeding the poly-bags onto the feeder tube as they filled, mom was labeling the bags and Tamra was pushing the course meat through for the second grind.  We better have a beer.

   Of all the sausage,   I decided that my favorite was the hot Italian batch that we mixed up with a bottle of Ménage à trois red wine, and a half-pound of fresh sage finely chopped in our mini food processor.  The distinctive sweet aroma of the sage filled the air in the kitchen as soon as it hit the pan.  We continued to busy ourselves with the meat processing, tasting, and storytelling.

See Tamra's wedding ring? Interesting.

    “ Hi everybody!”  It was the Buskirks.  As they walked through the garage door mom accidentally bumped a bottle of caramel-apple beer off the counter and onto the concrete floor exploding it with a loud pop.

    “Hey-oh! It’s not a good party until glass is broken!”  I announced.  Both Larry and Jane’s arms were full of fresh root vegetables and herbs from their bountiful garden.  Giant carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, brussel sprouts and zucchini were tucked into their arms along with bushels of fresh rosemary, sage, and parsley.  Behind them I could see that they had set down a nice cabbage the size of a basketball.  The unusually sunny summer had turned their normally awesome garden into a super-garden.

      In addition to the fresh stuff Larry handed me two jars of their special zucchini relish and Jane produced a platter with pre-cut samples of her beet cake.  Strange as it may sound it was the moistest chocolate cake I’ve ever had. Pure decadence.

   The Sunday afternoon mosied on as we processed meat, shared good food and good company.  We finished up the last of the sausage and finally cut up the second rib cage into meal sizes strips. Mom and Tamra began the cleanup.

    “Before you leave you have to come in and try the brisket stew.”  I insisted.

      An hour before it was done I dropped in big hunks of fresh carrots, potatoes and onions.  With the addition of the finely chopped fresh parsley, rosemary, and celery it was getting close.  As I stirred it up, the rich burgundy-brown sauce swirled it’s ribbons of liquified moose drippings around the chunky vegetables.  The brisket itself was lurking just under the surface ready to fall apart by way of fork, and melt into our mouths. I served everyone a bowl.   The creamy marbled fat  in the meat unveiled it’s distinctive moosey flavor.  “Wow, this is great” Dad said.  

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     At fish camp this summer I reread “Shadows on the Koyukuk”-a collaborative work by Sydney Huntington and Jim Reardon.  Widely accepted as a classic Alaskan book, Reardon pulls-together the vocal history of his friend Huntington.  They are both former board of game members.  Throughout the book Huntington’s storytelling weaves a rich tapestry of tales reminiscing of the old native ways of life growing up in the Koyukon territory as far back as his early childhood.    

  One of my favorite passages reads as follows:

   [That’s the way it was then.  Whenever a moose showed up in the Koyukuk, someone would find its trail and stay with it until he killed the animal.  Once the moose was taken, camp was made, and every bit of the animal was used.

    Chief  John and his wife had banked the base of their tent with moose hair for insulation, and they had made a moose -hide bed for each of their five dogs.  Chief John had found rocks at a nearby bluff with which to break the bones so they could boil out all the nourishing fat and marrow.  They had skimmed the fat off the top of the water and with it made a soup.  It was surprising how much fat they got out of those bones.  I ate with them, and with a little added rice, that soup was delicious.

    Some of the meat was cut into strips and dried into jerky.  They cooked and ate all the of the intestine parts and large blood vessels.  All the meat from the head ( some of the sweetest meat on a moose) was removed, cooked, and eaten.  No usable part was wasted.

    “Need help getting back?”I asked.( a young Sydney Huntington)

     “No we stay three more days to finish the skin,and cook all the bones, we take our time.  Maybe stop by muskrat camp on way back to Hughes- after breakup.  No Hurry.”]

     Why not celebrate the harvest? Why not savor it and taste some of the best parts?  This idea has always intrigued me;  it’s almost romantic.  The moose, largest of the deer family, is such an exceptional animal.  It deserves the extra care and attention to detail.  It is the ultimate prize in Alaskan subsistence. No other Alaskan game animal is as widespread and provides nearly as much food.   The windfall of the moose is not only a year’s supply of fresh lean protein, but it tastes good and is very versatile.   

    A Forrest Gump-eske rattling off of our common moose table-fare includes the following: moose steak, moose pot roast, moose ribs, moose hamburgers, moose meatloaf, moose tacos, moose spaghetti, moose chili, moose fajitas,  moose sausage, curried moose, moose meatballs, moose cube steak , moose brisket,  Moose-a-roni, moose sandwich, shredded pulled moose, corned moose, moose pizza (Italian sausage), moose summer sausage, moose bacon, moose liverwurst.  Well worth the effort of the hunt and all the time processing.  Moose is good food.       

     We had no intentions of cooking intestines and blood vessels that day for dinner, or breaking bones to boil out the marrow for that matter.  In our own way though, we too were taking our time to enjoy our own sweet meats and celebrate the bounty of life through the death of a moose.